


A Fair Man

by celluloidbroomcloset



Category: The Avengers (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3557918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloidbroomcloset/pseuds/celluloidbroomcloset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steed and Emma reunite after many months of being apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“What could I do, Steed? I could not just leave him then and there.”

“I understand, Mrs. Peel.”

Emma pulled in a breath as she pulled in her legs. It had been six months since she sat on that sofa. Six very long, very lonely and very confusing months. Six months since she’d seen the well-dressed man before her. He stood with one hand on the mantlepiece and the other on a rather large whisky in a crystal glass. No champagne this evening. 

“How are you?” she said. 

“The peak of health, Mrs. Peel.” He thumped his chest – a very un-Steed-like gesture. “Fit as a fiddle, as it were.”

Emma smiled. He did look well. Thinner than when she had last seen him. And he'd yet to eliminate those ridiculous sideburns. 

He swished the whisky in his glass. “What did you decide, in the end?”

“About Peter? We are … incompatible. I don’t know whether that is my fault or his – I rather think both. I am not the same woman he married, and he expects me to be.”

“Divorce?”

“Separation. But then … yes. Divorce.” The word no longer gave her a pain. It was six months in coming. “I had to give it a chance, Steed. You do see that, don’t you?”

“Not really. But I am not you.” He looked at her steadily, without reproach. “Was it worth it?”

“To try? I could never have lived with myself if I had not. If I had just said to him, ‘I’m sorry, Peter, you’ve gone through hell and back again, but I’ve moved on’? No, Steed, I couldn’t have done it. Would you have really wanted me to?”

He did not respond. He rolled his glass in his hand like it was a brandy snifter that needed warming. His brow was furrowed just slightly, but otherwise he gave nothing away. She was unused to this tension between them. She could usually read him. Hadn’t she read every glance, every touch and movement of his body, for two years? Now she wasn't certain what he was thinking. 

He sat down beside her on the sofa – far enough not to touch her, she noted with an unbidden constriction in her chest. What did she expect? What had she expected, when she’d phoned him?

“Can you tell me about your work?”

“Not really. Official Secrets Act.” 

“How’s the … new girl?”

She tried to remember the young lady’s name. A very pretty young lady. Steed probably liked her a great deal.

“Tara? Coming along. Doesn’t pick things up quite as quickly as you did, but she’s trying.” 

Passionless. Everything he said was passionless. No banter, no sly smiles. No sparkle in the eyes. She’d left him six months ago and in that six months he’d become a stranger. More than a stranger. Cold, charming, diabolically smooth John Steed, Ministry Agent. She wanted him to yell, curse, be insulting, be witty, be cutting, be anything but … this. Coldness. Detachment. 

“You must be good for her.”

“I like to think so.” 

Totally non-committal. She’d thought that everything would clarify itself when she saw him again, but instead it was a great deal more confusing.

Emma set her drink on the table by the couch. “Well, I wanted to ... I’ll be going now.”

She rose quickly and went for the door. Nothing more to be said. She’d told him what she came to tell him. She had tried in her marriage, and she’d failed, and now she’d informed her erstwhile lover of this fact. She’d promised herself that she would not apologize and she had not. It was between hurting him and hurting Peter, a man who had no choice in the matter, and she chose Peter. It had been a mistake, perhaps, but she was certainly not about to debase herself before a man who no longer felt anything for her - or if he did, would not show it. Perhaps it had all been a charming little dalliance that he could take or leave. But he said he loved her, once. All those words and glances, all that closeness … 

“I don’t forgive you, you know.” 

Her hand came off the doorknob and she turned. He had not moved from the sofa, but he looked at her with a quiet steadiness far worse than any anger.

“I never asked for your forgiveness,” she said.

He ignored her. “I do understand why you did it. But I do not forgive you for taking something that was very good and … 'killing it' seems a strong phrase. Damaging it.”

She crossed to the center of the room, hands on her hips.

“I did not come here for that, Steed.”

“I know, Mrs. Peel. You came here to ask me to understand. You owed Peel a chance to be husband and wife that you couldn’t quite give up.” He stared into his whisky, then back at her. “You might have asked me to understand six months ago.”

“Would you have?”

She thought of the way he'd looked when she walked away. Like a wounded man, too prideful to admit he was wounded.

“It would have been nice to be given the opportunity. I always thought of myself as a basically decent person. I certainly hoped that you thought of me like that. That’s what hurt the most, you know. You did not trust me enough to ask me.” 

He paused. She’d never heard him speak so earnestly for such a length of time. The cold detachment she’d identified in him was wearing down and beneath it ... beneath it she began to see John Steed again. 

He twisted the glass in his hand and set it back on the table, beside her own. 

“I abhor lies,” he said after an interminable wait. “That was not what hurt the most. What hurt the most was that I loved you and I watched you go off with another man.”

It was the even tone. If he'd screamed it, or sobbed it, or said it with intensity, with passion, it could not have affected her more. She was standing above him before she knew she’d moved. 

She would not have kissed him had she given herself time to think about it – but even supremely rational Emma Peel could be ruled by emotion once in awhile. She kissed him and he returned her kiss - tentative at first, then with increasing fervor. He wrapped his arms around her body and pulled her down to him until she found herself collected onto his lap. Six months and she had not forgotten yet how he tasted, how it felt to run her hands through his wavy hair – how his touch always struck fire in the most inconvenient of places, and often at the most inconvenient of times. She’d often wondered if she was attracted to Steed because he reminded her of Peter. When he kissed her – among other things – she knew that he was nothing like Peter. 

“I didn’t come here for that either,” she said when she was able, ashamed at the slightly breathy quality of her voice. 

“I don’t care.” 

He kissed her again, deeper, his mouth opening on hers, his arms drawing her in tightly against him. She wound her fingers in his hair, stroked the nape his neck, making him bristle and emit that familiar growl that never failed to amuse and delight her. She wanted to remember everything about him, every curve of his body, every muscle and bend. Everything. Images of the big bed upstairs naturally rose, and how he felt on top of her, beneath her, in her …

“You left me.”

She heard him, almost from a great distance for his face was buried in her neck, but she heard him. He’d told her he loved her in the most matter-of-fact manner, and now there were tears in his voice. 

“I never left,” she said. “Never.”

She slid her hands over his shoulders, encased in expensive cloth, and over his arms, across his broad chest, down his torso. It was impossible not to compare him to Peter, as she had compared Peter to him for all those months. Steed did not compare. He was incomparable. Not because he was strong where Peter was wiry, or big where Peter was slender, or rough where Peter was gentle – but because she loved him. She loved Steed and not Peter. She wanted Steed and not Peter. It was unfair from the beginning, because she loved Steed. She had been horribly unfair and she knew it. 

That notion was among the last rational ones she had for several minutes, for a hand had traveled up her leg beneath her dress and was wreaking havoc with her equilibrium.

“Take me to bed, Steed,” she managed to say. “For God’s sake …”

She arched against dextrous fingers and when she looked down at him she caught the fiendish glint in his eyes. 

“You’re a devil. And a tease."

“Have I ever failed you?”

“Not in my recollection. Although there was an instance in Whitby, where I seem to recall you had some difficulty … Steed!”

He lifted her off his lap, wrapped his arms around her legs and slung over his shoulder, all in one smooth movement. 

“Women who point out their lovers’ shortcomings, especially during reconciliation, must take the consequences,” he said. 

“What consequences?”

“Multiple ravishments on a four poster bed.”

She laughed all the way up the stairs, where he deposited her none too elegantly on the large bed. 

“You’ve gained weight,” he said, puffing a bit. 

“How old are you again?”

"A hundred and seven.”

She pulled him down by his lapels. His weight was comfortable and welcome after far too long. 

“Emma,” he said seriously, though his eyes were sparkling again. “I will not go through it all a second time. If we’re together, then we’re together and that’s an end to it. If you cannot promise me that, you must leave now. As you so kindly remind me, I am older than you and my heart really cannot stand watching you drive off again.”

She ran her fingers through his hair and down the side of his face. Her Steed. Hers. And she was his. She laid her hand on his chest. 

“I’m here, Steed,” she said. “And I’ll be here tomorrow.”

She paused. Promises to herself be damned. She had been wrong. 

“Steed, I'm ..."

He shook his head. "We'll forgive each other, in time."

She slid her arms around him and pulled him down to her, breathing him in. He was not perfect. He would sometimes drink too much, or smoke too much; he was vain and he was a flirt. He was grouchy in the mornings and stayed up until all hours. He was far too enamoured with his cars. But she could be capricious and over-rational and vain as well. She teased him too much. She had broken his heart. 

“Steed,” she whispered, happy to say the name again. Happy that she'd come back. Happy even for the pain she'd gone through. 

She felt his head turn and a voice spoke in her ear:

“Emma, don’t you think it’s time you called me John?”


	2. A Fair Man

“Steed.”

Over the course of a long career, John Steed had been shot, stabbed, tortured, beaten, imprisoned, poisoned, nearly drowned, nearly blown up, nearly killed a hundred different ways at a hundred different times. Why, then, was nothing so calculated to knock him to the ground as that voice saying that name?

He stood for a moment, wavering with the phone in his hand.

“Steed?”

He would have to summon some sort of verbal ability.

“Mrs. Peel, what a pleasant surprise.” 

It was not fair. There had been many things in his life that he considered unfair, but this … this was the unfairest of all. After six months and some very strong wording to himself, he still could not control the effect she had on him. And he’d tried. Dear God, how he’d tried.

“Steed, I’ve … I would like to see you. Could I see you?”

Steed immediately began turning over the multitude of excuses in his head. No, he was on assignment. He was going out of the country. He had a dinner engagement. He had a drinks engagement. He had a breakfast engagement. He was going to the theatre. He was going to drive his car into the Channel. 

“Tonight?” 

“Just for a drink. I would very much like to see you, Steed." 

There was a pause, an intake of breath on the other end. 

“I could come there,” she said and he did not miss the edge in her voice. Desperation? Emma Peel, desperate? 

“All right. I’ll expect you. Does seven suit?”

“Seven. Good-bye, Steed.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Peel.”

Steed rang off and sank into his chair at practically the same moment. Six months. Six months she’d been out of his apartment, out of his life. 

“And you’ve been out of your mind,” he said to the empty room. 

He had run a very effective campaign against himself. Drinking at his club, driving around town, taking Tara to dinner, visits to his sister. He assiduously avoided anything that might remind him of her. When he worked, he buried himself in his work. When he did not work, he buried himself in his leisure activities. Buried himself deep enough that she could not reach him. No time, not to think about her. No time to think about what he had lost, or what he could have done differently. What was the point of recriminating when it was done? She had made her choice. 

But all it took was the sound of her voice and he was right back where he’d started, six months ago. That same raw, rubbing pain, someplace deep inside of him. A place he could not reach. It was not fair. 

“Life is not fair, Steed.” 

The platitude did not help, however true it might have been. 

He went into the kitchen and stared blankly into his refrigerator. Outside the kitchen window, the sun was still bright. It was not even five yet. Almost three hours to drive himself utterly mad. Perhaps he should drink himself into stoicism. Perhaps he should ring Tara, arrange for a late dinner. No, that would not be fair either.

In a different life, a different world, perhaps he and Tara would have made some sense. She cared for him, he could see that. Worried about him as no one ever had. But it would have been a mistake. She needed someone younger, less prone to fits of temper. She needed someone steadier.

“She needs someone who is not in love with another woman,” he muttered and slammed the fridge. 

He went back to the sitting room and poured himself a drink. A large drink. He looked around the room. Here was the problem that he could not bury. He came home, and she was there. 

How was it that every corner of the damned place reminded him of her? Here was where they sat and discussed the Winged Avenger; there was where the bomb destroyed his tuba. Here was where they made love for the last time. He did not know it would be the last. 

Don’t go. That was all he needed to say. Then at least there would be no regret. It was on the tip of his tongue that day, but when he opened his mouth all that came out was ‘Thanks.’

Thanks. Two years and the most intense love he was ever likely to experience and he’d … thanked her.

Don’t go. Stay with me. Leave him. I love you. Love me. 

So many things he could not ask her to do. It would have been unfair and John Steed was, above all things, a fair man. But wasn’t the whole matter unfair? Hadn’t it been unfair that they loved each other and that she left him for another man? Even if that man was her husband, wasn’t it still unfair? Had he no claim on her, after two years?

So many things he’d tried to convince himself of. That she never loved him. That he'd been a replacement for Peel. That those two years meant nothing to her. A dalliance he'd taken seriously. But then her face would be there before him, the way she said his name, the way she smiled at him, looked at him, even when she thought he wasn’t looking at her. And he knew. She loved him.

That hurt, more deeply than he at first realized. He knew she loved him. He knew it when she walked out his door for the last time. And still loving him, she had broken his heart.

He glared at the empty glass. Strong, collected, well-bred, well-dressed John Steed. The perfect agent, undone by a woman. An old story, a boring story, a predictable story. But not the less painful for that. He rose and poured himself a second drink.

It was an interminable wait to seven o’clock. Too much time to speculate on what she wanted, and to indulge the torture of happy memories, and to drink. He refused to be drunk, however. He would not face her at less than par. 

Practically on the chiming of the clock, he heard her crisp knock on the door. 

He was prepared to see her again. But he was unprepared for the constriction in his chest and the welling of that raw pain. She was the same beautiful, captivating woman she'd always been. She wore a new dress, light and loose that only succeeded in accentuating more what she concealed beneath it. It was truly unfair, for someone to be that beautiful, that kind and generous, that intelligent. It was unfair that Emma Peel even existed to torment him. It was unfair that he loved her.

“Steed.”

“Mrs. Peel. Do come in.”

When she moved past him, he caught the scent of a new perfume that he did not approve of. Peel probably bought it for her. 

Steed took a breath to clear his head. 

“Can I offer you a drink? No champagne tonight, but I have an otherwise stellar array.” He waved at the sideboard. 

“Thank you, Steed. Brandy and water, if you still imbibe.”

He turned to pour the drinks. When he turned back, she was seated on the couch, her legs crossed. She was looking up at him with those big brown eyes that could be cruel and judgmental, soft and yielding, that laughed at him, with him. That looked at him, sometimes, with an adoration she took pains to conceal. At the moment, she looked almost frightened. But Emma Peel was never frightened.

“What was it you wanted to see me about?”

He did not mean to precipitate the conversation, but the longer she was in his apartment, looking at him like that, the worse it was. 

She did not respond at first. She sipped on her drink with her arms crossed across her chest and her face a mask of imperturbability. Sometimes it was hard to believe that a woman who seemed so cold could also be so passionate. Could have clung to him with such demanding intensity and shown him all the vulnerabilities he was convinced she never showed to anyone else.

Never give anything away. She had learned that from him. He never gave anything away. He never spoke when it counted, never said ... 

“I’ve left Peter.”

Steed had also never dropped a glass in surprise, but he had to catch the one he currently held.

“Beg pardon?”

“Or he’s left me. We’ve left each other.” 

She sipped her drink again. Her face and posture had not changed. Nor had the fear in her eyes.

“When did this happen?”

“A few weeks ago.” 

“Ah.” 

He could not think of much else to say. He supposed it would be bad form to cheer or turn a somersault.

"It was a long time in coming," she said. 

She was being very careful, coming at the issue rationally. Her voice was steady. Her hands were steady. But her eyes ... more expressive than she knew, those eyes. 

"I see." 

He stared dumbly into his drink to avoid looking at her any longer. If he did, he was fairly confident that he would give in to the unnerving impulse to lift her from the sofa, kiss her deeply and carry her upstairs to the bed that had been without her for far too long. That was a temptation, even following all the pain she'd caused him. To have her around him again, to touch her, kiss her, hold her. To be a part of her. To feel her tremble under his touch, to hear her voice calling his name. To want her and know she wanted him. A temptation beyond all others.

Steed brought his eyes back up to her. A beautiful, frightened woman. Emma Peel was frightened. Of him. Of what he would say. Of what this all meant. He would have to speak next.

She had come to him. She had gone that far, even if she would go no further, even if her pride or her fear did not permit it. He was through with being prideful. He was through also with being fair. He resolved that he would tell her. He would say what he had never said. Before the night was through, he would tell her how much she had hurt him. How much he still loved her. But for now …

“Can I freshen your drink, Mrs. Peel?”


	3. A Fair Man

The room was dark save for the light filtering in from outside; silent save for the shifting of the winds without, the occasional car. Emma pulled the silk dressing gown tighter about her shoulders. She felt a little ridiculous, having taken herself from a warm and comfortable bed to stand in the sitting room and stare at the haloed light of a street lamp. It was ridiculous. But she could not bring herself to remain in that bed. 

She recalled another time when she had stood at a window in the middle of the night, staring at nothing. It was several years ago, after the particularly distressing business of the Cybernauts. She’d run from Steed then because she could not bear the tenderness she felt for him. She had admitted to herself that night that she loved him. The prospect of losing him gave her a sense of emptiness that she never felt with Peter. 

Things had not really changed since that night. She still loved him, still wanted very much to go back to his bed, which she had been absent from for six months longer than necessary. But she also could not bear to be too close to him.

She watched a cab fly down the slick streets outside. How many nights had she fled from Peter’s bed, and stood alone in the house that was too big for her and too small for them, and thought of Steed? In the clarity of those midnight watches, she admitted to herself what she perhaps would never be able to admit to him. 

She had been scared of her dependence on another person. She survived the loss of mother, father, husband, and friend. But she was confident, then as she was now, that she could not survive losing Steed. She had left him before he could be killed or vanish. Left him before circumstances could take him from her.

Peter had given her a way out. Of course she had to return to her husband. Of course she had to be there for a man who spent years in a jungle. Her husband, who promised to be safe again, promised to settle down, promised to be the husband she wanted. Promised never to leave.

The collapse of her marriage was her fault, even if it was out of her control. She never really left Steed. She could be apart from him for a day, a year, ten years, and never leave him. She would feel him every night, hear him every morning. She spent weeks looking at Peter and wishing – with great cruelty – that he was Steed. Wishing even that he had stayed dead.

Peter had known at least some part of what was happening. She was not the same woman he married, and certainly not the one he expected to be waiting on some widow’s walk for two years. That was one of Peter’s failings. Perhaps he had too much confidence in her, or too much complacency. In any case, he believed she would wait, and pine, and dream of him. He never considered the possibility she might be doing something else with her life. 

Steed was right. She took something very good and damaged it. She hurt him, she hurt Peter, and she hurt herself. For all her proclamations about duty and fairness, she knew why she did it. She was scared. In six months, nothing had changed. She was still scared. 

She was not aware of Steed’s presence behind her until he slid an arm around her waist and placed a soft kiss against her hair. 

“Beautiful women should not be wandering cold flats in the dead of night.”

She leaned back into him. There was no denying how good he felt. 

“Bed too small?” he asked. “Snoring too loud? Did I steal the duvet again?”

“I’m used to it. I missed it.” 

“Is that all you missed?” He kissed her ear. “Are you all right?”

“I was thinking.”

“May I share your thoughts? Or would you prefer I take myself back to bed?”

She clasped the fingers of the hand wrapped around her waist. “I was thinking about us.”

“An excellent pastime, but I’d prefer action to thoughts.”

“I made an unholy mess of things, Steed.”

“Not such a mess. You’re here now.” The arm tightened. “Nor do I intend letting you leave again.”

“I hurt you.”

There was a pause.

“You did.”

She turned to him. “And you can forget that?”

“No. It is not a question of forgetting.”

“I could have done so many things differently …”

“You could have. We both could have. I certainly could have said something beyond ‘thanks.’ ”

Emma stifled a laugh. “I admit that I didn’t expect that.”

“Coherent sentences did not come easily at the time.”

His voice was light, but she knew he was serious. She remembered that look, which had said a great deal more than words ever could. She put her head on his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry.”

“I hope that someday you will stop saying that.”

“Any time within the next thirty or forty years.”

He stroked her hair back so that she was forced to look into his eyes. 

“Emma, I will not spend the rest of our lives listening to you apologize. You did hurt me. I’ll recover. A great portion of that recovery involves … this.” He lightly touched her lips with his. “Can you bring yourself to believe that?”

She nodded. Her heart was too full to do much else. 

“And can you let it go?”

Another nod. 

“And will you come back to bed now, or shall I be forced to take you over my shoulder again?”

She laughed. “I think I can walk of my own volition.”

For the first time, she realized that he wore nothing except a pair of pajama bottoms. 

“You must be very cold.”

“Some heartless individual has purloined my dressing gown.” 

“You could have put on more than that.”

“I don't intend to remain clothed longer than is strictly necessary.”

They made their way back up the stairs to the lofty bedroom. She loved his bedroom. Utilitarian, a bit untidy, replete with his personality: the decanter of brandy on the desk, the sheafs of papers, books of military history and boys’ own adventures; an entire stack of Tintin comics in various languages, a cricket bat, the expansive wardrobe with an array of bowlers to rival any haberdasher. And the large bed – large enough to accommodate two active sleepers, even if he did have a tendency to try and pitch out of it in the middle of the night. 

Steed very gently turned her to face him and undid the knot of the dressing gown. 

“I can undress myself, Steed,” she said, watching his hands. 

“Will you allow me? I did not get the chance to look at you properly earlier, what with your insatiable appetite.”

“Most men would be flattered.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t.”

He opened the gown and slid it from her shoulders until it pooled on the floor by her feet. She watched him as he looked at her, close enough to touch her. He never looked at her like other men did, like he wanted to own her, possess her, like her body was his to take, or appreciate. He looked at her like it was privilege to look and not a right. Burning, passionate gazes that sent shivers up and down her spine. But respectful. She had taken such respect for granted. 

“I’m getting cold, Steed,” she said.

A smile pulled at the side of his mouth. “Serves you right, after stealing my dressing gown.”

“I always liked it. It’s close to being in your arms.”

An eyebrow raised. “Why settle for close?”

She could not argue with that. They slipped into the bed, Steed pulling her after him into an embrace overwhelmingly tender. Their earlier reunion, as it were, had been very demanding, borne of extended absence and unspoken need.

It occurred to her that in the two years they had been partners they were never apart for more than a few days at a time. And then their reunions usually wreaked havoc on the furniture. She recalled a particular antique desk that Steed had been quite fond of, and that suffered the consequences of a full five days of absence. 

Now the hand that traced the contours of her body was gentle, as though he was afraid that in touching her, she would evaporate. The tips of his fingers barely brushed the skin, but left in their wake goosebumps she was incapable of controlling if she’d wanted to. Still that same intense, longing look in his eyes, unwilling to break the unseen barrier until she told him yes. She took his hand and his mouth at the same time. 

Kisses, gentle at first, increased in urgency, his hands now sliding over her body in smooth, deep strokes. Sensations she’d never experienced with anyone else trailed after them. With him, such caresses were unafraid and understanding. She came alive when he touched her – she could find no other word for it. From the very first, he’d formed a prideful attachment to giving her pleasure. He seemed proud – sometimes a little too proud – of his ability to draw responses from her, vocal and otherwise. She always responded in kind. She knew his body fully as well as he knew hers. 

Her hands sought purchase on his back, her mouth pressed to the hollow of his throat where she could feel the pulse beat against her lips. She loved his arms most of all, the broad shoulders, powerful forearms, his intelligent, calloused hands, the small scar on his right biceps. When her fingers caressed the nape of his neck and slid beneath his hair to hold his head, he growled. He brought his body to bear fully on hers. In six months he’d lost none of the strength he always possessed, though he had dropped some of the bulk. 

Gently – very gently – he parted her legs as he trailed kisses down her throat, her chest, lingering on each breast until she trembled beneath him; then down her torso, his hands separating her as she arched her head back and closed her eyes. Torturous heat radiated up her entire body at the touch of his mouth. 

She had almost lost this; something so wonderful, so intense and so gentle, so honest. This man who had never judged her for her strength or her vulnerability, who protected her when she needed protection but never tried to stop her from going her own way; who had loved her and never claimed rights, prerogatives; with whom she could be in love, and free, at the same time. Who only ever asked for love and respect and honesty in return. And she had broken his heart - for a fear she could not escape, and a man she no longer loved. Yet he took her back without reproach and wanted nothing more than to give her all he could.

She was unaware that she was crying until she heard her own sobs. She tried to stifle the tears – felt ashamed suddenly, out of control – but could not stop. She covered her face with her hands, confused, horrified. The sensations that had been radiating up her body ceased and she felt bare and exposed for the briefest moment. Then he collected her to his chest, his arms gentle but firm around her.

“Emma,” he said, and it was neither reproach nor question. 

She had cried in front of him only once. Not long before Peter’s return, just after Paul’s murder. A night very much like this, with the rain against the window and the fog on the street. They sat on his couch before the fire and she cried. Cried for losing her oldest friend and for what she could not prevent. Cried also for all the people she had lost in her life – for Peter, for her mother and father, for the family she did not know. Cried for all the times she thought she had lost Steed too. And for the time when she would.

She should have told him then. The one thing she had never told him. Words were often not necessary between them – he knew, he had to know – but how she regretted in those terrible hours alone with Peter that she never said, how very much …

“I love you, Steed.” 

She wasn’t certain if she made it understandable, between sobs. 

“I love you,” she repeated, desperate for him to hear it. 

Past and present coalesced and suddenly she was the young woman orphaned, the widow waiting for word, the friend left behind. Then she was the one who did the leaving – turning him over to some girl, her replacement. Like that would make everything all right. But she came back. Surely he could not leave her now, not after that. She came back.

His lips were on her forehead, on her cheek, against her closed watering eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. 

She looked at him, through a film of water she had to wipe away. How could he know? 

Because he had lost them too. Friends, family, lovers. Her. 

Her greatest fear. And his.

“I’m sorry,” she managed to say, clinging to him. “I’m sorry.”

“Emma, stop.”

He kissed her and held her. With each kiss the desperation ebbed – the sorrow for what she had done, the guilt, the fear. He kissed her and she was kissing him back, trying to make up for what they nearly lost.

“Please, John,” she said, drawing away so that she could look into his eyes. “Please.”

As always, Steed understood better than she supposed. He released his grasp on her, parted her thighs with the backs of his hands, and gently, slowly entered her. 

For a moment, neither of them moved. They just lay there, in stasis, eyes locked. He brushed a final, errant tear from her face. She wound her fingers through his hair. They were far past words, but now no words were needed. 

He moved and she moved with him. Always so perfectly in synch, in speech, in act. She felt him in every inch of her body, his gentleness, his control. They had been rough with each other in the past, and enjoyed it, but tonight she needed gentleness. She needed to remember him, the feel of him within her, that had left her comparing for six months. 

She could no longer form a coherent thought, could only focus on that place far deep inside of her that only he ever touched. Physical, emotional, mental, everything rolled into one act, the coming together of body and mind and heart, and all she could do was trust him, with everything. 

She gasped. She moaned. She felt his body alive in hers, his guttural cries somewhere far away, increasing in intensity as he upped the pace, as she arched to meet him, take him deeper. He said something, her name, somewhere between a moan and a sob and suddenly she was aware what it meant to him too. He wanted her, needed her, as much as she did him. He might not have forgiven her, but he loved her. 

It was too much. She could not control it, as much as she wanted to, as much as she longed to keep him within her. She was unaware now of anything else except the waves passing over her body, of her own voice crying out, of holding him deep, her legs locked around his hips, and him still thrusting through her orgasm, prolonging it to an almost unendurable intensity. Then he was there, the muscles on his back tightening and body bracing, his hands bunching the sheets, a choking sob, a rush of fire that joined them, perfectly. 

He collapsed on top of her, his body still shaking, his head buried in her shoulder and his breath coming fast against her skin. 

“John,” she whispered. It was a good name. A natural name. 

“If you ever leave me again, I’ll go into a hermitage,” he said, voice muffled.

She laughed and stroked his hair. “A great loss to women everywhere.”

For a long while, they just lay there. She felt much calmer, in control again. But this was a different kind of control. She could not quite codify it, but it had everything to do with the man who now lay in her arms. 

His weight began to be uncomfortable and she gently shifted him by a hand on his shoulder. He rolled over with a mutter of protest. She nestled against his chest. 

“I would not call you an overly emotional woman,” he said after a time, idly stroking her arm. “But I confess that I’ve never provoked that kind of reaction before.”

It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about. “Oh. I’m glad to hear it.”

“Care to talk about it?”

She rested her chin on his chest. “Emotional overflow. “

“This is why you should not go ruminating in the middle of the night. Next time wake me up and I’ll distract you.”

“You’re beast when rudely awakened.”

“Don’t be rude, then.” He paused, pulling on a tress of her hair. “For the time being, however, will you not leave in the middle of the night without informing me? I had a minor panic earlier.”

She lifted her head. His face in the vague light looked twenty years younger. When he spoke again, it was very matter-of-fact.

“I’ve spent the better part of six months imagining you in my bed. I confess that for a moment I thought tonight had all been a very vivid dream. I’m not telling you this for sympathy, merely for … the sake of my health. I promise that eventually I won’t be quite the needy old dotard you see before you.”

She stretched up and kissed him. “I won’t leave without informing you. And as for old dotard … I like my men mature.”

“I’m delighted to hear it. I’m not getting any younger.”

“Neither am I, for that matter.”

For a moment she enjoyed looking at him. A very handsome man, at whatever age. 

“You called me John,” he said. “I don’t believe you’ve ever called me that before.”

“I once called you Johnsy-wonsy.”

He grimaced. “That was highly unnecessary. If I am to have a pet name – which, by the way, I find juvenile – it shall certainly not be Johnsy-wonsy.”

“Steedie?”

“Don’t be disgusting.”

“Steedums?”

“I shall eject you from my bed forthwith and you may bivouac upon the sofa.”

She laughed and rolled over, taking his arm with her. He bent his body easily around hers and he made a contented noise, like a big cat. 

“Call me anything you like, Emma,” he said into her ear. “But please don’t ever leave me again.”

She closed her eyes and focused on the heart beating against her back. There was always a chance that she would lose him; that someday he would not be there, and that still frightened her. It probably always would. But for now, he was there. He was not going anywhere. Neither was she.


	4. A Fair Man

The nightstand Emma Peel was looking at was certainly not her own. Nor, for that matter, was the pillow on which her head rested, the duvet pulled up around her shoulders, or the arm that encircled her waist with a relaxed possessiveness. A moment of panic seized her. Surely, she had not …

The body behind her shifted and a vague masculine grunt reached her ears and she remembered. Steed. It was Steed’s nightstand, Steed’s duvet and pillow, Steed’s bed, the arm that held her belonged to Steed, and the body pressed against hers was not Peter. It was Steed. 

Emma carefully shifted his arm just enough that she could turn around to face him. Steed. He had not changed, not really. Oh, he was thinner, less bulky, and at some juncture had grown the most ridiculous sideburns. Perhaps there was something a little darker in his face and around his eyes. But he was still the same Steed – the same gentle, uncomplicated, maddening and delightful man she’d met more than two years before, and worked with, and fallen in love with. He’d broken down every barrier she constructed simply by existing. She loved him, had loved him from the start. Everything about him, what she could express and what she could not. 

He was beautiful too, in his way. Not perfect by any means, but beautiful. The long, powerful body, capable of such violence and such tenderness. His face, genial, insinuating, kind. His lovely grey eyes that never looked at her but with honest longing. How could she help but fall in love with him?

She stroked his face and he shifted against her hand, mumbling in his sleep. The eyelids began to flicker. His eyes opened and for a moment he looked at her with baffled incomprehension that almost frightened her. Then his face lit up.

“Good morning,” he said. 

“Good morning.”

It was too delightful to be with him again. She tried not to laugh. She put her arms around him, pressed her face into his neck and tried to stifle the laughter that came bubbling to the surface. He held her and she heard him chuckle in her ear. 

“I’ve really inspired the gauntlet of emotions,” he said. “Anger, tears and now laughter.” 

He drew away and stroked her hair. “Am I to understand that you’re pleased to be here?”

“You might take it that way.” Emma felt tears on her own face.

“Now, no more of that.” He dabbed at her eyes with the sheet. “I won’t have it. The tears are all done.”

“Steed …”

“Emma.” 

He kissed her. What a joy it was to kiss him again. With one hand, he drew her leg up around his hips. 

“I missed you,” he said. “God, I missed you.”

Rational thought once more deserted her as Steed set out to prove – with remarkable skill and dexterity – just how much he had missed her. Emma found that there was something to be said for slightly older, certainly more experienced men. Or perhaps there was just something to be said for Steed. 

After a time, during which it was finally necessary to recover her breath, Emma rolled over. 

“It really is not fair. You have entirely spoiled me for other men.”

“I make that one of my goals.” He smirked at her. 

“Conceit is very unattractive, Steed.” 

“How can a man help it?” He worked himself up against the pillows. “There’s no lovelier sound in the world than a woman …”

“I think that perhaps it’s time for breakfast. I do suppose you have breakfast materials?”

“Of course! Eggs, rashers, coffee, orange juice … ”

“Expecting company? Or is this a natural state?”

“I do eat breakfast on occasion, my dear.” He placed a kiss on her shoulder. “Alone.”

Looking into his eyes, Emma determined that if she did not get out of bed that instant she was unlikely to get any breakfast for some time. 

She struggled out of bed and picked his dressing gown from the floor. Turning around to put it on, she was aware of his eyes on her. 

“You’re quite beautiful, Emma,” he said, quietly. 

She knotted the gown. “I hope you love me for my mind too.”

“One thing at a time.” He smiled. “Those auburn tresses might have attracted me to begin with, but the world is full of beautiful women. There is only one Emma Peel.”

“Knight.”

“Beg pardon?”

“My maiden name: Knight. You’d best get used to it, for I shall be using it again.”

Steed frowned. “That will be rather difficult. You’ve always been Mrs. Peel to me.”

“I’ll settle for just being ‘Emma’, then.” She cocked her head at the perplexed expression on his face. “It isn’t that difficult to say, Steed.”

“No, I was contemplating the whims of the fates.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Knight and Steed. Given what we’ve been doing this morning, that’s delightfully ironic.”

Emma quickly left the room, that he might not see the blush that went up to the roots of her hair. 

Food preparation had never been her forte, although she did manage to begin the coffee. She was contemplating the eggs with a vague feeling of distrust when Steed appeared, resplendent in blue silk pajamas and the same self-satisfied smirk on his face. 

“Sit down,” he ordered. “I have experienced your conception of breakfast and I wonder how you ever lived alone.”

“I’m a lady of leisure, thank you very much.” 

But she took her seat at the table. Another delight she had not experienced in some time: watching a man cook breakfast. Rather: watching Steed cook breakfast. He was really quite adept. Not a movement wasted, but then that was how he did everything. Even in pajamas, with his hair tossled and his jaw as yet unshaven, he possessed such an air of elegance, of masculine beauty, of …

“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, the eggs will remain uncooked.” He stood at the stove, smiling at her. 

Six months ago, she might have been embarrassed if he caught her admiring him so openly. But things had changed. 

“I do love you, Steed,” she said.

“I heard you last night. But I shan’t tire of hearing it.”

She reached out for him and he crossed the kitchen in two strides. He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand, her palm and leaned down to her lips. 

“I can’t get over my great good fortune,” he said. “Yesterday I thought I’d never see you again. And now you’re in my kitchen, at my breakfast table, looking terribly alluring in my dressing gown.”

She pressed his hand. “It’s horribly domestic, isn’t it?”

“Not the adjective I’d choose.” 

He kissed her once more and probably the eggs would have indeed remained uncooked, had not her stomach reminded her noisily of its needs. Chuckling still, Steed returned to the stove. 

After at least some of her cravings had been satisfied, Emma pushed the empty plate away.

“I tremble to ask this, but I have often wondered where you learned to cook.”

Steed poured out the coffee. “Cathy Gale. A remarkable woman with a domestic streak she would never acknowledge. She forced me to learn to cook for myself as defense from her accusation that I was an indolent male.”

“I would like to meet her some time.”

The expression on his face was comical. “I’m not certain I’d approve.”

“And why not?”

“Mrs. Gale’s assessment of my qualities was not flattering. Although we did have some fine times together, she heartily disapproved of what she called my ‘cynicism.’ Bringing the two of you together would be something like the collision of hot and cold air: bound to produce some exciting weather.”

“I’m not certain if I like being called hot air, Steed.”

“An unfortunate metaphor, perhaps.” He poked at the eggs. “I suppose it would not be a total disaster. I always liked Cathy and she warmed to me before it was quite over. At the moment, however, I intend to keep you entirely to myself.”

“What about your other … partner?” She had not intended to broach the subject of the young lady, but it naturally presented itself. 

“What about her?”

“Oh, come now, Steed.”

“There’s nothing between myself and Tara, Emma. She’s a very sweet, rather inexperienced girl who shall make a fine agent if she manages to focus herself.” He paused. “She’s also young enough to be my daughter.”

Emma stifled a laugh. “I’m not exactly Whistler’s Mother myself.”

“Well, no, but you’re … far more … I was going to say mature, but you might take it amiss.” 

He looked at her. “She trusts me, Emma. I don’t like to take advantage of trust, even if the lady is willing. Nor do I find it particularly easy to make love to one woman, however attractive, when I am in love with another.”

She did not expect the last, but if it was possible for her to feel any more deeply for him, she did at that moment. 

“It simply would not have been fair,” he continued. “To her or to me.”

“Are you saying you never considered it?”

Steed leaned forward across the table. “She is a very lovely girl. But she is not you. However, if you insist on being jealous … ”

“Oh, stop. You certainly do not need another boost to your ego.”

But it was her turn. She rose and went to him, sliding her hand up through his thick hair. He pressed his face into the fabric of the dressing gown as she caressed his head. 

“I love you,” he said, a statement of simple fact. 

She rested her head on his. A fiercely independent man, and yet there were times when he seemed to depend on her absolutely. She considered her own dependence. How could she have missed that undeniable fact, that he needed her as she needed him? They would not die without each other – that was a romantic illusion – but a life apart would be empty. 

“Steed, there is just one thing…”

He drew back and looked up at her as she continued to wind his hair through her fingers. 

“You may not like it, but we must be honest with each other.”

His brow creased. She slid her other hand down his face to his jaw. 

“Steed. Darling. We really must discuss these sideburns.”

The sound of his laughter filled the apartment.


End file.
